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OPINION

Bangert: Donnelly on pope, Trump, jobs to Mexico

When Sen. Joe Donnelly pulled up a high-backed chair at Star City Coffee in downtown Lafayette on Friday, the news cycle of that Friday morning was knee deep in the most unlikely back and forth to date in this presidential race.

Pope Francis, asked about GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s call to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, had said that anyone who was talking about building walls instead of bridges “is not Christian.” Trump fired back. And if it made a dent in U.S. presidential campaigns, it didn’t keep Trump from winning the next day’s Republican primary in South Carolina.

But on Friday, with an iced coffee in a Mason jar in front of him, it was a good conversation starter with Donnelly, a South Bend Democrat and Notre Dame graduate, on a stop in Lafayette. Here’s an excerpt of the conversation.

Question: Let’s start with this: What do you do if the pope calls you out in front of the masses?

Donnelly: I understand the pope’s view on this. But first and foremost, we’re a nation. And a nation has borders. And the nation’s borders need to be protected. I happen to be Catholic, but I think the pope needs to respect that our nation’s borders need to be protected as well. They certainly have walls and borders at Vatican City, which I think he forgot about.

Q: Does it put you in a more awkward position to have to defend Donald Trump?

Donnelly: I have not found myself in that position very often. And he is, I think, way overboard in his comments about immigration. I’m the grandson of immigrants. … This nation was built on immigrants. They make this nation more rich and diverse. We’re just trying to do it the right way.

Q: So size up the president race so far. Let’s talk about the GOP side.

Donnelly: I think it’s really a reflection of what we saw here in Indiana in 2012, where in the primary, you get the most angry, the most motivated, the most focused partisans on both sides. So Richard Mourdock wound up beating a terrific statesman, extraordinary senator and a wonderful man by 22 points. I think those same voters are going to be coming out to vote in this primary. (In 2012, Mourdock beat Sen. Richard Lugar in the GOP primary, but lost to Donnelly in the general election.)

Q: How about on the Democratic side? Have you picked sides?

Donnelly: I have. I endorsed Hillary Clinton, because she has significant experience in regard to foreign policy. She’s also worked on … our economy (as a senator). When President (Bill) Clinton was in office, he followed moderate policies that led to the last budget surplus we’ve had. I believe similar policies would be followed under Secretary of State Clinton.

Q: How do you size up Bernie Sanders’ popularity?

Donnelly: He’s tapped into the same thing you’re seeing that happened to Carrier down in Indianapolis, where 1,400 people were let go for no reason at all, other than the reason that Carrier figured out they could go to Mexico for $3 an hour. … This is a complete abdication and break of the American promise, where in turn for producing those profits and producing that success and creating the best products in the world, this Fortune 50 company turns around and throws them out the door. Folks feel this isn’t right, and we need to change that.

Donnelly: I was really angry. Angry about the fact that someone could stand there and look at the people who have produced their success, … the ones who put the connections on, who bent the metal, who put the hoses on, who made it so Carrier’s reputation was such that if I bought that furnace and put it in my house, the next time I think about it is 25 years later.

Q: Does a company like Carrier, looking to bail out, pay attention or just brush off that criticism and anger and do what it wants, anyway?

Donnelly: What we’ve said to Carrier is, we don’t want to be at crossed swords with them. We want to work to keep them here. They’re not going to do anything right away – they gave us a year-and-a-half notice. If the only thing causing this is wages, we need to work together to solve this. What can we do to close that gap? … There’s an answer here if they want to find an answer.

Q: How about the Supreme Court nomination process? Where do you stand on everything that’s developed since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia?

Donnelly: First, I thought we’d have a few days where we’d honor Justice Scalia. It didn’t turn out that way. … It seems like there’s an increasing chance of movement on this since there’s been such a backlash on the position of some senators to say, “Look, I’m not going to do my job. I’m just going to wait (for the next president).”

My expectation with the Supreme Court is that, at the end of the day, the president is going to send us a moderate choice. … You have people who have hit the ball down the middle, who have worked on both sides of the aisle and who have been confirmed (as federal judges) by the Senate already. How do you not give that person a vote this time? I’m confident the president will send us a candidate like that.

Q: So, you’re saying it won’t be like the headline in the Onion this week: “Obama Compiles Shortlist of Gay, Transsexual Abortion Doctors to Replace Scalia.”

Donnelly: (Laughs.) Probably not. The Onion might have missed that one. … I think this is going to be very moderate, very common sense. Because this president … very clearly understands if he nominates someone extreme, he enables and encourages the Senate to hold things up. He takes away all excuses when he sends over somebody who has bipartisan credentials and who has clearly administered the law in a very moderate and common sense way. … But then, watch him do the complete opposite in two weeks and I’ll be proven to have no knowledge of what’s going on.

Q: He really doesn’t have anything to lose at this point, right?

Donnelly: I’d be willing to bet everything I have that he’s going to choose a moderate, common sense judge, because he has a commitment to fill this position in a way that brings our country together in a way.

Q: Here in Lafayette, Mayor Tony Roswarski has been beefing up police efforts to deal with what the city considers to be drug-fueled crime. But he’s said the city needs the help from the state and federal government to deal with addiction and other things the city can’t afford. What kind of help can he count on?

Donnelly: We’ve been fighting this for a few years now. Recently, we’ve gotten a lot of other senators who have looked up and said, wow, this is serious stuff.

Q: Why now and why not earlier?

Donnelly: Because they’re seeing terrible heroin addiction. They’re seeing terrible opioid problems. … Step one is prescriber practices. We have this crazy situation where you go in and say, “Hey, my shoulder got banged up,” and you get 30 Vicodin or 30 OxyContin. You say, “Look, I only need two or three.” And you’re told the prescription is 30. So part of it is changing the fallback number to being much lower to reduce the amount of product on the street. …

Part two is training our EMTs with Naloxone and Narcan (overdose antidotes). … Third step is to provide additional funds to law enforcement, which is what Mayor Roswarski is looking for, as well, to help with them on this. … Another area that needs to be beefed up, and doesn’t sound as close to home as Lafayette, but as we tighten everything up on the opioids and they’re less available, (we know) 80 percent of heroin addicts started with opioids. So we’ve got to cut off heroin as well. That comes up through Mexico. Our military and border work down there is woefully lacking. …